For Crying Out Loud
by mayfair22
Summary: "What if I've grown accustomed to your face?" he pulls the My Fair Lady line and Blair is unable to stop laughing. "Sorry to disappoint you Humphrey but you're no Rex Harrison." When Blair goes in denial and Dan has to resort to desperate measures.


_AN- So I have done the whole angst filled post Kiss scenario in 'Four Seasons In One Day', this however is a much lighter and I believe a better take on what can happen after the kiss. I hope you like it._

_Thanks to the awesome bsloths for beta reading this._

_AN2- Apparently ffnet has gone wacky yet again so I'm not sure if anyone has been able to read this story or not. On my end I have not been able to send reviews or receive updates or anything, so I'm posting it again in hopes that ffnet comes to its senses soon._

* * *

><p>"No. nothing," she says pulling away from him, "I didn't feel a thing. You?"<p>

Dan takes a few seconds to get his breathing under control before letting his full glare fall on Blair Waldorf.

She really is going to ignore all of this?…The way her hands had shifted from his collar to his neck and had just a few seconds ago been pulling at his hair hungrily? Hell! He may have been the one to suggest that they kiss, but there was no way that anyone could deny that it had been her who had initiated it, when he had, for the sake of his own sanity, hesitated at the threshold…

He was right about hesitating after all. From the looks of it, this was not going to be easy.

"Blair…" he tries, "are you sure you didn't feel a thing?"

"Of course. Humphrey. What do you think?" She narrows her eyes at him, "unless of course you did feel something…"

Dan shakes his head, he could tell her the truth, but at the moment he knows better…_Never underestimate the power of denial…._Definitely not if it involves Blair Waldorf.

But he doesn't want to lie either.

Serena saves the day, when the elevator door suddenly swings open to let her and Chuck enter.

"Blair…" Chuck says.

"Dan? What are you doing here?" Serena enquires.

In some twisted turn of fate, he at the moment just sort of is irritated by the presence of the love of his life but he takes the opportunity and turns away from Blair to face Serena, "I…I'm looking for you actually." And the fact that he can say this without batting an eye lid says a lot about what the UES has done to him, "I heard about Lilly."

Beside him Blair stiffens slightly before agreeing, "Yes, he had this…This all consuming, paralyzing thought of seeing you."

Dan flinches but Serena just looks pleased at the thought, "You're always there when I need you."

He smiles slightly in return, ignoring the look Blair throws him, "C'mon. You need to be with Eric at the moment. I'll take you."

Serena throws a questioning glance at Blair and then at Chuck who has been relatively quiet all this while. "Yes. You should go." He answers her, "Blair is here, I'll be fine."

And with that Serena takes hold of Dan's hand and leads him out, "Let's go. They need to talk."

He turns around just as the elevator door opens and Serena pulls him inside.

Blair is looking at him, in the same determined but strangely soft manner she has looked at him several times this week.

'_We're not done here__,__' _he tells her silently.

'_Yes. We are__,__' _she replies.

* * *

><p>He leaves her endless messages on her phone. She doesn't reply to any.<p>

"We have to talk about it," he tells her when she finally takes his call.

"Humphrey?" She breathes out in shock, "first of all, it's creepy to use Nate's phone to call me, secondly talk about what?"

"The kiss Waldorf," he replies, exasperated beyond reason.

"What kiss?"

"Blair!"

"Humphrey!"

"We kissed. You cannot just not remember it."

"I don't remember a thing." And he can totally visualize her gritting her teeth and stage whispering even though they are on the phone and there is probably no one around to hear her anyway, "you cannot prove a thing. We did _not_ kiss. End of the story."

He is left starring at the phone for several seconds after she hangs up on him, till it suddenly vibrates to indicate her calling back, "Delete my number from the call log," she says as soon as he answers.

"Blair…"

And then she hangs up on him for the second time.

* * *

><p>If sleeping with Chuck Bass had brought her to confession, kissing Dan Humphrey was worth lashes as penance.<p>

She is therefore shocked when she sees him on the bench, amusedly waiting for her to finish confessing her sin.

Except for him though, the chapel is empty. Apparently Manhattan isn't very religious on a non Sunday.

"I didn't take you to be the religious kind," he tells her when she returns.

"And I thought you preferred the term agnostic."

"I do," he replies.

"Then what are you doing here?"

"Trying my luck." Dan admits and continues when Blair raises an eyebrow at him in question, "you see, there is a girl I like," he pauses to take in the sudden intake of breath Blair takes, "a lot." And smiles when she takes it out, "but she has this major issue with denial. So I'm taking my chances with the supernatural. Getting her to accept that we kissed on human terms is beyond me,"

"You're wasting your time Humphrey," she finishes before turning on her heels and walking off, "you're also delusional."

* * *

><p>She runs into him while on her way back from Columbia, he had just walked out of a coffee shop as she had passed by it and since then she has been acutely aware of him following her.<p>

She turns right and he turns right, she takes the elevator, he is right beside her; she ignores him and he doesn't say anything in return either and then he promptly enters her house as she makes her way in.

He is now standing in the middle of her hallway. The same spot as _that _night if she agrees to go down that road. But she isn't…_What night? _

And she has had about enough of Dan-I-can't-take-a-hint-Humphrey; she turns around to glare at him, "Are you stalking me?"

"Well, "Dan shrugs, "Mary did have a little lamb."

"Wow!" she mockingly exclaims, "comparing yourself to a sheep? Very charming Humphrey."

He grins at her, "Well, I could also be a frog who turns into a prince."

She rolls her eyes at him and continues before she has had the time to actually think her words through, "It didn't work the first time. It won't work now."

He laughs when her eyes go wide as she realizes what she has just admitted to, "I'll take that as a start," he tells her confidently, chuckling some more as she gulps nervously, "but I'm actually here to pick up Serena. Dad asked me to bring her down town to Lilly."

"Oh…" Blair manages, "Oh! Serena? Yes of course. She's in her room."

* * *

><p>"C'mon Waldorf. It's not like I'm asking you to pick out the wedding china." Dan whispers beside her, "It's just a date…"<p>

Blair glares at him and he sighs irritably, "Fine. _Not_ a date. It's just a movie between friends," she glares at him some more and he is forced to change his stand, "okay. Movie between _non-friends._ Will you _now_ come?"

Before she can answer him though, they are interrupted by his dad, "Dan, Blair what are you two doing there at the back of the room," he calls out to them, "Come sit here. We all need all the support we can at the moment."

Mutely they return to the situation. Everyone is there, Dan notices; Lawyers, family and Chuck Bass and he can't help but feel guilty for not being there more actively. With Lilly under a heavy threat of being thrown in jail, this is probably not the right time to form liaisons.

But he can't help but look at her when he goes to get his father a much needed drink.

Their eyes meet for a second and it's mutually understood that this was a bad bad time.

He lands up taking Eric for the screening of The King's Speech instead, who is pleasantly surprised that his step brother had taken the pains to get them box seats just in order to make him feel better about the whole prison issue with his mother.

* * *

><p>The next time they meet, things are in a better condition. Lilly has managed to get an anticipatory bail and even though the issue isn't as yet resolved everyone has breathed a sigh of relief for the time being.<p>

Rufus decides to throw them all a breakfast for being there and Dan finds himself in the vicinity of Blair Waldorf once again.

"Did you hear about the Kandinsky exhibition at the Guggenheim?" he begins conversationally.

"I might have…"

"Have you read the rave reviews?"

She squares her shoulder at him, "How could I not? You had my issue of The New Yorker ear marked before it had even reached me."

Dan grins. It had taken him $50 to bribe the post man.

"I'm planning to ask Nate to come with me." Blair snorts but lets Dan continue uninterrupted, "I'm sure he'll enjoy it."

"I'm sure he will." Blair tries to answer sincerely but is unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice.

"What?" Dan asks, "Nate and I have a lot in common. It'll be fun."

She's had it at that, "Oh! Spare me Humphrey. The only thing you have in common with Nate is that you both lost your virginity to Serena."

"Your point being?"

"My point is that The Guggenheim can do without Nate's untimely jokes. Do yourself a favour and go alone."

"Yes. Because the Bauhaus are best enjoyed alone."

And he looks appropriately crestfallen forcing Blair to reluctantly reconsider, "Fine," she sighs, "you can toss the Disney face now. I'll see you there at four."

He lets full thirty seconds pass after she has gone to let his face fall into a huge triumphant grin.

* * *

><p>Whatever be her take on all this, this is still absolutely normal for him.<p>

Them. Together. Just coming back from an art exhibition to stop at the skating rink to finish their coffees.

It is at this moment that he tries to broach the subject again, "Are we still not going to talk about it?"

"Yes." She takes a sip of her latte before turning to observe him, "Why won't you drop it?"

He decides to go the sincere way, "Because I hate not being able to spend time with you."

"Humphrey!"

"Blair!"

"Listen to yourself. We spent one holiday, _one _holiday together. It does not make us best friends."

It doesn't. He knows that but she had to be kidding to not have felt anything in that kiss. Forget the kiss, doesn't she just miss _them?_

"What if I've grown accustomed to your face?" he pulls the My Fair Lady line and Blair is unable to stop laughing.

"Sorry to disappoint you Humphrey but you're no Rex Harrison."

He shakes his head at her, "Will you please look at the bigger picture here. I just compared _you_ to Audrey Hepburn"

Blair smiles. Genuinely. This, she can live with.

* * *

><p>When they don't meet for two weeks after that, let alone do the 'talking' he so desperately wants to, he assumes that his efforts have been nothing but futile.<p>

Was it for the best after all?

What he is not expecting though is a call just as he is about to make his way to his Comparative Literature class.

"Humphrey?" her voice is hushed and soft and he can hear someone drawl something about D.H. Lawrence in the background.

"Waldorf? Are you calling from your class?"

"No. I'm calling you from my grave!" Comes her reply, "of course I'm calling you from my class."

His first instinct is worry; it would have to be a dire emergency if Blair Waldorf was calling him in between a Colombia lecture, "is everything all right?"

"I need you to meet me here in half an hour."

"Half an hour Blair? I'm at NYU! In fact I was just about to enter my class."

"Well," she snaps, "If I can miss a lecture here then you can miss one at the place I once mistakenly called University."

Okay, cut him some slack for wanting to get this conversation over real and quick; he does have a class to attend.

"What is it then?" he asks tiredly.

"Dan…," she says from the other end, "I can't stand another second of Sons and Lovers!"

He pauses, he isn't sure if he has even heard her right.

"And," her voice keeps up a notch, "they are screening 'It Happened One Night' in another half an hour…."

He ends up asking Troy from class to take notes for him. Apparently Greek Literature could wait and Blair Waldorf couldn't, plus Sons and Lovers did pretty much suck.

He makes it to The Upper West Side in forty five minutes and smiles through her entire rant on punctuality.

Because she had called him _Dan_.

* * *

><p>He can only call himself innocent, naïve if not plain stupid. Because he should know that if it has to work, it has to be on her terms.<p>

The fall back into pattern is effortless and the loft goes back to lightening up just by her eye roll.

"Are we not going to talk about that night?"

"What night Waldorf?" he asks absentmindedly because he really doesn't remember and then it strikes him, "Oh! _that _night," he looks at her intently, "seriously?"

"Seriously." She smiles, moving in right into his personal space and he stays rooted to the spot.

"I felt something."

_Bingo!_

But he can't bring himself to smile impertinently at her like he had imagined he would, _if _ever she decided to let onto her feelings, so he just stares…and stammers, "uh…I…"

And hesitates.

And like a reel playing all over again, Blair rolls her eyes at him in impatience and grabs him by his collar to push him forward, "Oh! For crying out loud Humphrey!"

* * *

><p><em>AN- I may have gone a little OOC with Dan there. He wouldn't really pull a Disney face. Would he now? In my defense all I can say is that I have been a watching a lot of Community these days…!<em>

_Please review, they absolutely make my day._


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